Feinstein's Cigarette Tax Initiative Has Gone Up in Smoke

First, U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein announced she wasn't running for governor -- now comes word that her big statewide education reform initiative will be scrapped as well.

It was just the day before Christmas, you may recall, that Feinstein filed papers to begin a statewide initiative effort that would impose a $1-a-pack cigarette tax to pay for educational improvements and tougher standards for students and teachers.

At the time, it was believed that Feinstein would use the initiative to help fuel her run for governor.

Feinstein insisted that the initiative had nothing to do with her wanting to be governor. And, in fact, when she finally did announce she wasn't running last month, she claimed that exiting the race would allow her to push even harder for education reform.

As it turned out, however, the senator's lawyers had made a technical goof in drafting the initiative -- and it was back to the drawing board.

It wasn't until a couple of weeks ago that the lawyers submitted the revised measure to the state attorney general's office for the final sign-off.

But with only about six weeks to gather the 633,000 signatures to qualify the initiative for November's ballot, Feinstein's folks are now privately saying it's "highly unlikely" that they will even try.

MEAN STREETS: San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown has called for a crackdown on double-parked trucks in the city -- largely because one blocked the Muni bus he was riding on the other day.

And from what we hear, it's getting a lot of support from the public.

But according to KCBS reporter Barbara Taylor, Craig Bellfour, the mover whose van blocked the mayor's bus, had paid the city for a special permit to use some parking spaces on Sacramento Street that morning.

And indeed signs went up on the meters in the area.

When the moving van arrived, however, all the spaces he'd paid for were filled with illegally parked cars.

Bellfour said he called the cops and parking control to get the cars towed, but no one came -- thus forcing him to double park the van and block the bus the mayor was riding.

Brown also wants a crackdown on jaywalkers. But he might want to run that idea by the beat cops.

"Jaywalkers? Hell, the city does nothing when we cite people for drug use, when we cite people for public drunkenness or even sleeping in the park. What makes you think the courts are going to crack down and enforce something as lame as tickets for jaywalking?"

Another officer cracked: "Who are we going to send out to bust them -- the cigarette police?"

By the way, the last guy to call for a jaywalking crackdown was acting Police Chief Tom Murphy in 1992.

The crackdown went down in flames, and so did Murphy's tenure as acting chief.

DISASTER: Citing a host of suspicious irregularities, Oakland City Councilman John Russo has called for a district attorney's investigation into Oakland's new multimillion-dollar, super-tech emergency response system.

Russo's call comes on the heels of a new auditor's report that has the councilman's eyes rolling.

As Russo told us:

"No. 1: Many of the receipts and checks were only signed by one person, when city policy is that they need to be signed by two people.

"No. 2: Items that were to be delivered under the contract aren't the same items as listed on the receipts."

"And three: More than $1 million worth of things that were supposedly delivered can't be found."

"I'm not saying there was fraud," Russo says, "but if there was -- this is how it would show up."

We can't argue with that.

CHECCHI'S CHARITY: Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi and multimillionaire gubernatorial candidate Al Checchi had an interesting chat the other day about charity, of all things.

It started out when Pelosi asked Checchi about reports that he was willing to spend "whatever it takes" to win the race. (So far that's been about $7 million.)

No big deal, Checchi explained. He'd be spending the money anyway -- on either charity or public service.

It's just that the "public service" in this case is his own.

THE OTHER GUY: Al Gore wasn't the only presidential hopeful to parachute into the Bay Area this week -- Minnesota Senator Paul Wellstone whirled through here as well.

In 36 hours, the little-known "social justice" liberal hit two newspapers, two radio talk shows, talks at UC Berkeley and Stanford, a breakfast with local labor leaders and a meeting with Mayor Brown.

Wellstone -- who looks and acts more like a city councilman than a stuffy senator -- also hopped out of the car at one point and joined a labor picket line in front of a hotel. "I'm not sure what the specific issue was, but I'm for them," Wellstone said.

By the way, Wellstone also invited us out for coffee to introduce himself. He said he won't officially decide until fall whether he'll run, but if he does get in, he says he'll be out there campaigning "with a twinkle in my eye and a two-by-four."

JUDGING THE JUDGES: Interesting story this week in the legal Recorder: Former U.S. Judge Robert Aguilar, who resigned in 1996 in exchange for dismissal of racketeering charges, has been named to the interview committee for, of all things, Santa Clara County judges.

Aguilar was sentenced to six months in jail in 1990 for disclosing federal wiretap information to alleged mob hit man Abe "The Trigger" Chapman, who was related to Aguilar by marriage.

Aguilar, whose conviction was overturned on appeal, is now practicing law in Campbell.

As for those messy allegations about him and the "the Trigger," Aguilar said, "I think the people I've worked with know me better than the FBI."